It seems to me that some people I run across don’t understand the importance of dyslexia awareness month proclamations. I get that everyone is entitled to their opinions and I have never taken the time to ask why they don’t think they’re important or worth the time and effort. Maybe they’re right, maybe they're not, but I believe contacting a government entity and getting them to put on paper that dyslexia exists is a start to helping our dyslexic children in public schools.

We really didn’t know what to do with the first Dyslexia Awareness Proclamation we secured from West Virginia in 2012, so we just hung it on our wall. It looked great on the wall, but it’s not meant to be a piece of art, it’s meant to be used as a tool.

My family has learned to use the proclamations we’ve obtained, as tools. In January 2013, we started Decoding Dyslexia West Virginia and plastered the 2012 and 2013 proclamations all over our social media sites. We did it for parents like us who had been told in IEP Meetings that West Virginia didn’t recognize dyslexia as a learning disability. This way, if parents didn’t know where to look in special education law, they might come across the proclamation and realize that West Virginia did recognize dyslexia. Then in the process of moving between West Virginia and North Carolina in 2013, we used the West Virginia Proclamation to obtain the North Carolina Proclamation. We called North Carolina Governor McCrory’s Office, let them know that we were moving into their state, told them about the West Virginia Proclamation and asked if it would be possible to do that same thing in North Carolina. The staff member on the other end of the phone said, “Sure, send me a copy of the West Virginia Proclamation you have and we’ll see what we can do.” Sure enough within in a few days, they were writing a dyslexia awareness month proclamation for 2013. Next, we learned that we could use the North Carolina State Proclamation to obtain local proclamations. When we started Decoding Dyslexia North Carolina in the fall of 2013, we plastered the state proclamation all over our social media sites and challenged parents to contact their local governments and ask them to follow Governor McCrory’s lead and proclaim October, “Dyslexia Awareness Month.”

I’ve learned to use our local government proclamations with our county school principals and ask them if they would be willing to help spread awareness by adding a message that simply read, “October is Dyslexia Awareness Month” on their roadside signs or if that wouldn’t be possible, maybe they would consider spreading awareness in some other way. Some have put the message on their roadside signs, sent dyslexia awareness fact sheets home, put banners on their school websites, added it to their morning announcements or sent the information home in their newsletters. One principal this year, said he’d be happy to share it on the school website and twitter.

This is why I believe Dyslexia Awareness Month Proclamations are important.

Visit Penny's blog to see photos of how some schools are working to spread awareness.